It’s easy for leaders to get stuck in life, but we need to be constantly moving forward. Charles share 10 signs that you might need a new challenge.

We have all staked out our plot in the Temple grounds, so to speak. Carefully set up our ministry tables in a manner befitting someone of our experience and training. If Jesus made a surprise visit, would ours be one of those tables upended, its contents scattering about the floor? Or would He simply smile approvingly as He reviewed each of our offerings?

As a leader, I’d rather risk being embarrassed by my failure and faults than watch from the couch while the Father accomplishes great things through others who have the faith to fail.

I had been praying “God, get me outta here,” but God had a plan I did not understand. He took us deeper into the situation instead of bringing us out!

John Owen preached, “You must be killing sin or sin will be killing you,” and we must bring both intensity and intentionality to killing these viruses. We should not seek to manage them; we should seek to kill them.

Not all viruses have the same devastating impact on people. Some viruses are just more deadly than others. Regarding spiritual viruses, here are six (not an exhaustive list) that take leaders down.

Admit it; you've been there. You received a gift that makes you grimace – an orange tie with purple stripes, perhaps, or a battery-operated radish peeler. You can't be impolite and say, "I don't like it. I want to exchange it." So what do you say?

Fall follows Summer, which follows Spring and time marches on just as God designed. He limited time for us in set hours in a day, and set days in a week. We think there are not enough hours in a day, but God knew before He created time how mankind would use it. Scott discusses some poignant points about time management, and notes that pride may be the greatest weakness regarding the use of our time.

“I'll let you in on a little secret. Jill and I work really hard to keep a relational connection in the midst of marriage ministry. Emotional and physical closeness aren't a given. We have to make time to connect to just be husband and wife in an ever-evolving relationship. And there's nothing as good as prayer to connect (and to repair us).”

Instead of trying to create a single curriculum for everyone to use, we should nurture leaders’ capacity to design their own leader development. Some will emerge as specialist designers for complex design, while everyone will be able to do simple design.

Anyone can do simple design, and we need to nurture the capacity of every leader (and believer) so that everyone does it. In this way, across the life of the church everyone will understand that they need to build the whole person and everyone at a simple level will know how to do it. Consequently, across the life of the church everyone will nurture and build others. Parents will build children, disciples will build new disciples, leaders will build new leaders. This is a healthy church – a place of continual nurturing of life, where everyone takes responsibility for building others.

Recently I ate a very nice dish when I was in Asia. It was a famous seafood dish for the region – one dish with many different ingredients. There were noodles, water, seafood, ginger, sugar, rice wine and other things. There were a lot of unique ingredients but they all went together to make one tasty dish. This is how to design training! When the chef prepares the dish, he knows what he intends the final product to look like, smell like and taste like. He starts with the goal and then he determines what ingredients need to go in, in what order, how they should be mixed together and how it should be cooked – all the details of the design.

Chinese Christians have become adept at finding solutions by relying upon the Lord. Partners with them should be encouraged to bring tools rather than providing solutions. These tools in the hands of Chinese leaders may provide the means for devising suitable approaches to the challenges they face. Brent says mentors that model godly character traits help to build solution-finding leaders.

God does not typically speak in an audible voice, but God is speaking to us. Will God’s voice be a background noise which competes with the noise around us?

Leaders might learn a thing or two from a silly goose. Geese develop remarkable synergy, allowing them to fly as far as 1,700 miles without stopping. Flying solo doesn’t hit the mark for geese; neither can leaders go it alone for their whole adventuresome journey.

Who does the Lord send? Who will go? This article recounts an incredible moving of God’s Spirit in the hearts of young Asian leaders training to be missionaries. How can we lead our people to respond, “Here am I” when the Lord calls their name?

Ever feel like someone is not paying attention to you when they are not looking at you? How about when you are talking and they are tapping on a screen? What does that body language say when someone is trying to communicate with you? God has put you into other people’s lives on purpose. How can we as Christian leaders be a better representation of Christ to our family and friends – to the ones that know us the best and get under our skin the most?

How serious of a sin is it to not wait on God? Sure, all sins are equally evil in the sight of God. No debate there. But in terms of the consequences, it’s not that bad. Right? It’s just a little impatience. No different than getting impatient in traffic or a slow line at the grocery store. It happens to everyone.

To reach the unevangelized of today and tomorrow we should focus on “reaching the group” – by planting a church that will endure and will reach this generation and all of the future generations that will be born.

Without followers, leadership does not exist. It’s the first followers who “transform a lone nut into a leader.” Or as the Malawian proverb beautifully puts it: “A leader without followers, is simply someone going for a walk.”